PHOENIX LIFE ASSURANCE LIMITED PEARL WITH-PROFITS FUND

Transcription

1 PHOENIX LIFE ASSURANCE LIMITED PEARL WITH-PROFITS FUND Unitised with-profits policies With-profits policy performance your questions answered PLAL_Pearl_UWP_01/18

2 January 2018 With-profits policy performance your questions answered Introduction This leaflet aims to answer questions that are often asked about the traditional with-profits policies, like yours, which are invested in the Phoenix Life Assurance Limited Pearl With-Profits Fund ( this fund ). Background These policies were originally issued by Pearl Assurance Limited, which was renamed as Phoenix Life Assurance Limited from Pearl Assurance on 30 September Contents The questions we aim to answer are: 1. How does this fund work? 1 2. What are my benefits? 2 What is a market value reduction (MVR)? 3 3. How do you decide what bonuses to pay? 3 Annual bonuses 4 Final bonuses 4 Latest bonus information 4 What is the build-up of premiums? 4 Surplus money 5 How do you calculate a market value reduction (MVR)? 5 4. Why might payouts differ from projections? 5 5. How is this fund invested? 6 6. What about the shareholders? 6 7. Who looks after my interests? 6 8. Where can I find out more? 7 Page This leaflet is correct at 1 January The way we manage this fund may change from time to time. We will write to you if we make changes that may have a major effect on your policy. If you would like more details about any of the information in this leaflet, please refer to section 9. Where can I find out more?. Your former Pearl Assurance unitised with-profits policy may be split between the Phoenix Life Assurance Limited Pearl With-Profits Fund and the Phoenix Life Assurance Limited unit-linked funds, for information about the unit-linked funds, including the latest prices and unit-linked fund summary sheets please see our unit-linked pages (click here to go there).

3 1. How does this fund work? The payments you make into your policy ( the premiums ) go into this fund. Your money is pooled together with the premiums of the other policyholders who invest in this fund. We invest this fund in a variety of different types of investments (which we describe in the section How is this fund invested?). The investment return consists of income from investments and profits and losses which increase or reduce the value of this fund. We use this fund to pay the policy benefits to policyholders who have paid premiums into this fund. We also pay our running costs and tax from this fund and an amount each year to our shareholders. Shareholders are there to provide support to this fund, should it be needed (please see the section What about the shareholders?). 1

4 2. What are my benefits? Endowment policies guarantee to pay back a certain minimum amount provided they are held to the end date (sometimes called the maturity date) or on earlier death. Earlier death is when the person (or one of the people) on whose death benefits are payable, dies before the maturity date. Your premiums are used to buy with-profits units in this fund. The benefits payable at the maturity date are: the value at that time of the units you have purchased under your policy, including any growth in the value of units through the addition of annual bonus; and the value of any final bonus which may be added. Normally benefits we pay on earlier death are similar to those we pay at maturity. Some policies also pay out on terminal or critical illness. Some policies have a minimum amount, not related to the value of the units, which is payable on death (or, if applicable, terminal or critical illness). The cost of providing this guaranteed minimum death benefit is met by cancelling units. To receive the full benefits, you must pay all the premiums that are due. If you decide to stop paying premiums to your policy, this will affect the level of benefit that you receive. If you decide to surrender ('cash in') your policy, we do not guarantee the amount that you will get back from your policy and a market value reduction (MVR) may apply. Pension policies guarantee to pay back a certain minimum amount provided they are held to the selected retirement date. Your premiums are used to buy with-profits units in this fund. The benefits payable at the selected retirement date are: the value at that time of the units you have purchased under your policy, including any growth in the value of units through the addition of annual bonus; and the value of any final bonus which may be added. The benefits we pay on earlier death are similar to those we pay at maturity. Some policies have a minimum amount, not related to the value of the units, which is payable on death. The cost of providing this guaranteed minimum death benefit is met by cancelling units. Originally these policies were set up on the basis that on the selected retirement date you would use the cash benefit to buy an annuity. An annuity is a product which provides an income for life after retirement. As a result of the pension freedoms introduced by the government in April 2015, you no longer need to buy an annuity and you can take your retirement benefits in different ways. You can also access your pension benefits from age 55. If you choose to buy an annuity, the income that you can buy will depend on the size of the cash sum, and the terms available at retirement for purchasing an income. Some policies have a guaranteed annuity rate (GAR). If yours does, and you choose to take an annuity from your pension policy, you are entitled to the guaranteed rate. This will be beneficial where the market annuity rate is lower than the guaranteed rate. It is important to check whether you have a GAR and how it operates, as this may give you a higher pension. If you decide to take benefits, or transfer the value of your policy to another pension provider, before your selected retirement age, we do not guarantee the amount that you will get back from your policy and a market value reduction (MVR) may apply. If you decide to retire before, or after, the selected retirement date, we do not guarantee the amount that you will get back from your policy. For further information about pensions please see our website s Retirement centre here. 2

5 Bonds are whole of life policies that do not have a maturity date they pay out only on death or surrender. They were designed to be viewed as medium to long term investments. Your premiums are used to buy with-profits units in this fund. The death benefits payable are: the with-profits units, which have a guaranteed value of 100 pence; the bonus units, which may be added each year as part of the annual bonus declaration and which increase the guaranteed benefit and have a guaranteed value of 100 pence; and a final bonus which we may add. An extra 1% of the value of the with-profits units is also payable on death under some single premium bonds. We guarantee a minimum amount that you will get back from your policy, but the guarantee only applies when the death claim payment is made. The guaranteed minimum amount is the value of the with-profits units bought with your premiums, plus any annual bonus units we add over the life of the policy. At a guarantee date all the with-profits units are valued at 100 pence. For some single premium bonds, we allow policyholders to choose to make regular partial withdrawals, up to certain limits, and the value of the units cancelled (including any final bonus) will be paid on such withdrawals. MVRs do not apply to regular withdrawals up to certain limits where you surrender (cash in) an agreed quantity of your units at fixed intervals to provide you with an income. If you decide to surrender (cash in) your policy the benefits payable are similar to those we pay on death, although a market value reduction (MVR) may apply. What is a market value reduction (MVR)? There may be times when, looking back, we have added more in annual bonuses over a period than the profit we were able to earn. For such policies, we will usually reduce the amount we would pay if the policy was surrendered (cashed in) so that we only pay out the profits we have actually earned. This reduction is called a market value reduction (MVR). We do this is to ensure that: the surrender or transfer value is not unfairly higher than the policy s share of the underlying value of this fund s assets; and the interests of the remaining with-profits policyholders are protected. It would be unfair to the policyholders remaining in the with-profits fund if we paid some policyholders more than we had earned, as this would mean that other policyholders receive less than was due to them. We may apply the MVR: to partial surrenders or transfers; on early retirements; or when with-profits units are switched to buy units in a unit-linked fund. 3. How do you decide what bonuses to pay? We aim to add bonuses to your policy so that its value reflects the profits we have made whilst investing your money, less the costs of selling and running the policy. We can do this by adding annual bonus units, which increases the number of units with a guaranteed price of 100 pence at the end date of your policy, or by adding a final bonus when the policy pays out. 3

6 Annual bonuses The money paid into a policy less our expenses, grows with investment returns (this is the build-up of premium ). As investment returns are not guaranteed we cannot be sure that our investments will not fall in value before the end date of your policy. We aim to add annual bonuses at a lower rate than the actual returns received to make it less likely that the build-up of your premiums will be worth less than the value of your units during the life of your policy. Figure 1 shows this. Final bonuses If your build-up of premiums has grown to more than the value of your units, we will add a final bonus to your payout. Figure 2 shows this. Latest bonus information The latest annual and final bonus information is available here. What is the build-up of premiums? We aim to pay all policyholders their fair share of the profits this fund has earned over the time they have held their policy. We consider the build-up of premiums when deciding what a fair share is. The build-up of premiums (sometimes called the asset share ) takes into account the policies' share of: this fund s investment performance; our running costs, which include our administration costs, investment costs and commission; the tax we have to pay; the shareholders' share of profits (see the section What about the shareholders? for more details); charges for death benefits and other guaranteed benefits (see below); and any distribution of surplus money (see below). 4

7 Surplus money There is more money in the fund than we expect to pay out in claims. Some of this surplus money is used to protect the fund against unexpected shocks, for example a fall in the value of the fund s investments. However, the remainder can be released and used to increase the final bonuses and hence the amounts we pay out to policyholders. The amount we are able to add to policy values will be regularly reviewed and may increase or decrease, and could even be removed entirely. For the latest information on the amount of surplus money being distributed please visit here. How do you calculate a market value reduction (MVR)? If you surrender with-profits units at any time other than a guarantee date, we compare the build-up of premiums with the value of the units. Where the build-up of premiums is less than the value of the units then no final bonus is added and we may apply a market value reduction (MVR), which reduces the value of each with-profits unit and annual bonus unit below 100 pence. It is shown by the arrow in figure Why might payouts differ from projections given when I bought my policy? When most of our with-profits policies were sold, investment returns had for many years been much higher than they are now. This was partly because of the high rates of inflation in the 1970s and 1980s. The projected payouts on these policies assumed that these high rates of inflation and investment return would continue. Despite recent small increases in interest rates, we still expect interest rates to remain at historically low levels over the next few years. This means that actual payouts will be lower than were projected when policies began. Also, projections we give now on policies still to pay out are generally lower than before, as not only do we take into account lower earned returns, we also anticipate lower returns in future. Payouts on with-profits policies reflect the profits (including investment performance and other profits and losses) made by the with-profits fund over the lifetime of the policy. Profits earned by the fund have been less than those needed to produce the projected payouts. A major contributor to this has been the need to set money aside to ensure that we can pay the future benefits guaranteed under our policies. This has restricted the amount we have been able to invest in higher risk investments such as equities (company shares) and property which potentially provide higher returns. Many of our with-profits pension policies also have a guarantee, that the policy value at retirement can be converted into a pension at a rate which is currently more favourable than insurance companies generally now provide. 5

8 6. How is this fund invested? This fund is invested in a mix of assets such as company shares, property, bonds (types of loan usually issued by the Government or companies), cash deposits and alternative investments, such as hedge funds. This fund may also use derivatives (for example, the right to buy or sell securities at a pre-agreed price on a specific date) as an efficient way of quickly changing the investments in the fund and/or to reduce risks. How much is put into each type of investment will change over time. The aim is to make sure that the fund can always meet the promises we made to policyholders. Subject to this, the aim is to get the highest possible return, without any unnecessary risk being taken. The fund currently holds some higher risk investments which we expect to provide a higher return, such as company shares, property and hedge funds. The rest are lower risk investments such as bonds and cash. As this fund gets smaller and policies on average get closer to maturity, we expect that we will invest less in higher risk investments and more in lower risk investments. At the moment, there are different groups of with-profits policies in this fund with different mixes of assets. The mixes of assets and/or the groups may change in the future if we think it would be fairer to with-profits policyholders. We use the relevant investment performance when working out underlying policy values. The latest asset mix applying to with-profits policies in this fund and the returns earned in recent years on investments underlying policies are available here. 7. What about the shareholders? Shareholders can provide financial support to this fund. In extremely adverse conditions, we would use this support to provide for guaranteed policy benefits if the Phoenix Life Assurance Limited Pearl With- Profits Fund is not able to do so. In return for providing this support, the shareholders receive a share of the profits earned in this fund equal to one ninth of the value of any bonuses we add to policies. Phoenix Life Assurance Limited is one of the life companies within the Phoenix Group of companies (Phoenix Group). Other companies in the Phoenix Group administer our policies. If they can carry out their responsibilities for less than the fees we pay them, this could result in profit for Phoenix Group. Phoenix Group pays its own directors and shareholders out of its profits from all sources, of which the payments described above form only a small part. 8. Who looks after my interests? It is the responsibility of the Board to look after the interests of the policyholders. Our with-profits committee, with its majority of independent members, reviews all aspects of the operation of the fund and considers the fairness of risks and decisions from a policyholder perspective and advises the Board on their decisions. 6

9 9. Where can I find out more? Our Principles and Practices of Financial Management document (PPFM) provides a much more detailed description of how we manage this fund. You can read our PPFM here or you can ask us for a copy. Any yearly statement that we send to you will include information about annual bonuses and changes to our practices. Our current information leaflet, available here, has all the latest information for the Phoenix Life Assurance Limited Pearl With-Profits Fund, including annual bonuses final bonuses investment performance asset mix surplus money The information in this leaflet is correct as at 1 January Phoenix Life Limited No and Phoenix Life Assurance Limited No.1419 are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Both companies are registered in England and have their registered office at: 1 Wythall Green Way, Wythall, Birmingham, B47 6WG. 7